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One of the choice scenes from Sex and the City Two takes place between Charlotte and Miranda, the two moms from the fabulous female foursome. Miranda gets Charlotte drunk because she senses Little Miss Perfect needs to open up about how frustrating motherhood and marriage can be. “When I started thinking my nanny and my husband might be having an affair,” Charlotte confesses to Miranda a few drinks later in an Abu Dhabi bar, “My first thought was: I can’t lose the nanny!” The scene ends with Charlotte and Miranda making a tipsy toast to less-economically-well-endowed mothers who have to take care of their kids and their marriages without “help.”

Back to sunny South Africa and I’m not afraid to say how much I really do appreciate my helper. If she didn’t stick it out with me in the first two months, I KNOW I would have come off second best for not having her around to take care of my Sunny-bunny.

Now don’t misunderstand me either, I LOVE MY MAN and I am certainly not the sharing type! That said, she does such an awesome job at taking care of my son on top of all the housework that she has to do – I know I’d never be as efficient as her, and I said that quite plainly in being made and mother sucks! I have come to terms with the fact that I am not the housewife-type unless I’m not doing any of it but i digress.

My first three helpers weren’t bad, we just had very different personalities but I overlooked that because I didn’t want my son to bear the brunt of any frustration. Then along came Nosi – a young Zimbabwean and a mother herself who’s kid lives with her gran back in Zim. It breaks my heart to think that she never gets to watch her little girl grow up; be there to kiss her boo-boo’s; tell her everything will be ok when she gets scared or that her mommy loves her more than she will ever know. How do I know that she would do all of this for her own child, it’s because I see the care she takes with my Sunny-bunny. She’s patient, nurturing and so on the ball especially when he’s not well. The only way I know something is wrong with him, like a rash or a snotty nose, is because she tells me about it.

When it comes feeding Sunny, I take pride in whipping up fabulous home-cooked meals so that he can get all the nourishment he needs. Just in case you haven’t seen his dad, they both are on the lighter side of the scale (I tip it in the complete opposite direction, of course) so i need to make sure he eats a lot so people can stop asking me if I feed this child!!! Anyway, there’s always a stash in the bottom freezer drawer and on the odd occasions, she’s taken the liberty of cooking him something simple, whereas his dad has let him go hungry because I didn’t leave food out to defrost, have you ever heard of such hog-wash?

Recently she moved into a new place and because she had bought herself a bed, she didn’t have any transport money left over. I was so sad to realise that she was sleeping on blankets on the floor ever since she had started working for me that I went out to Mr Price Home to buy her linen, pillows and a duvet inner. On occasion, I’ll add some groceries in for her, when we go shopping. For mother’s day, she got a pair of warm fleece pj’s and a few bath products from Sunny-bunny because I figured she’d never get a gift from her daughter.

Even having her stay with us when we move out, has become a non-negotiable! I cannot imagine functioning without a helper – much less without her. Someone who’s easy to get along with, always in a good mood, on time and always willing to stay a little longer (on the rare occasion)…

Thank you so much Nosi, you make my life so much easier and pleasant. I know that Samuel loves being around you (especially because he cries for you as you leave at the end of the day) and because he gets away with murder around you. I hope that in return, you have enjoyed working for us too. While stuff is just stuff, I hope that the benefits are more than just financial – because you’ve come to be more than someone we just pay to clean our house and watch our child….